While there’s no current cure for the progressive disease, ongoing research suggests there are some ways to lower your risk, according to Harvard Health Publishing. The methods can be broken down to three basic areas: “how you move, what you eat, and what you do.”

Food to restrict during this meal plan: butter, margarine, red meat, fried foods and sugary sweets. Another paper from Temple Universityresearchers noted that canola oil may also not be beneficial to the brain as it reduced levels of the beneficial amyloid beta 1-40 protein in mice.

Additionally, research published in January in the journal “JAMA Neurology” showed that disrupted sleep patterns were linked with early signs of Alzheimer’s disease.

For that report, researchers found that in older people with no signs of cognitive impairment, those who had a messy sleep-wake cycle were more likely to have amyloid protein deposits in their brains.

“It wasn’t that the people in the study were sleep-deprived,” study author Erik S. Musiek, said in a news release. “But their sleep tended to be fragmented. Sleeping for eight hours at night is very different from getting eight hours of sleep in one-hour increments during daytime naps.”

Daffner said that a solid night’s sleep (seven to eight hours) is crucial. But if you’re having trouble sleeping, avoid taking over-the-counter sleep medications that contain the antihistamine diphenhydramine, which he warns have been associated with an increased risk of cognitive deterioration.